Very interesting read...check it out,

[Helevitia]

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=27&threadid=183870

[paulcs]

If any of this is true, then I think heads should roll at 3dfx. How can you screw up so royally, finally get product to market six months late, and have every hardware and gaming site on the planet report inaccurate, low numbers because your driver installer isn't working properly.

I'd like to see some reliable numbers. The benchmarking numbscull factor was running high on both threads: Vsync enabled, nutty settings, unreported settings, etc.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Brian R.]

It sounded to me like they were loading the default Windows drivers without actually loading the drivers on the CDROM that came with the card. Loading the 3Dfx drivers from the CDROM is the logical thing to do. I bet, in general, no one had read the instructions and just were happy to get a running card without work. That's what happens when you let Windows install the drivers for you without you pointing to the drivers you know should be installed.

[paulcs]

A user error. Hmmmm. Maybe. It seems pretty wide-spread, however.

Supporting what you said, their scores were pretty low to start with. Maybe the installation numbskull factor was in play.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Helevitia]

Brian, that's what I got out of it too. I also read that maybe what happened is that 32bit was turned off and therefore they are using 16bit instead which is why the numbers jumped up. Interesting nonetheless. What I found really intriguing is that Anandtech posted it on there news page.

Dave

[Brian R.]

I think it is up to 3Dfx to include instructions about overriding the default Windows drivers by an additional step in the installation, if they don't already. I feel like buying one of these cards just to play with it awhile.

Oh yeah, I'll bet they don't have an installation program. Sounds like they only have a directory on the CDROM with drivers.